1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a CAD management system and a CAD information management method, and more particularly, to a CAD management system and a CAD information management method which are suitable to manage CAD drawing information.
2. Description of the Related Art
A computer forms a drawing to design various pieces of equipment. As disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-91327 and in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 9-62728, in the case of managing CAD (Computer Aided Design) drawing information which is formed by a computer, CAD drawings such as PandID (Piping and Instrumentation Diagram) are used by one plant manufacturer or by one information management company. The CAD drawings do not consider a case in which an order company of a power generation plant or the plant manager uses a database under the plant manufacturer or the information manager.
Conventionally, a company which forms the CAD drawing stores CAD drawing information in its own database and the plant manufacturer or information manager which forms the CAD drawing information uses the individual database. Therefore, when the order company of the power generation plant or the plant manager uses the database which the plant manufacturer or the information manager has, information on the CAD drawing and an equipment specification is temporarily extracted from the database which the power generation plant manufacturer or the information manager has, the extracted information is fetched to the database which is managed by the order company of the plant or the plant manager. Consequently, new information such as progressing status of a periodical check or replacement of equipment is recorded to the database which the order company of the plant or the plant manger has, different from the database which the plant manufacturer or the information manager has, and is managed by the order company of the plant or the plant manger.
According to the above conventional arts, when the order company of the plant or the plant manager uses the CAD drawing or the equipment specification information which a plurality of plant manufacturers or a plurality of information managers have, the database which the plant manufacturer has cannot be directly accessed. A database, different from that of the plant manufacturer, must be additionally provided. Consequently, it is troublesome that the order company of the plant or the like constructs a specific database. Further there is a problem in that since the order company of the plant and the plant manufacturer update information stored in the database in different manners, a difference is caused between the databases formed by the order company of the plant and the plant manufacturer. The information management by the order company of the plant becomes difficult. In particular, when a plurality of plant manufacturers manage information, even in the case of the same product, a difference between update information is caused.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a CAD information management system and a CAD management method in which even when CAD drawing information or specification information is distributionally stored in a plurality of databases, it can be easily browsed in accordance with stored-destination address information thereof.
To solve the problems, according to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a CAD information management system comprising: a plurality of databases for storing at least one of CAD drawing information and specification information on a specification of a component forming a CAD drawing, corresponding to stored-source address information; and a terminal connected to the plurality of databases via a communication network, for receiving and transmitting information to/from the plurality of databases based on input information, wherein when stored-destination address information indicating a stored destination of information is inputted as input information on the stored-source address information, the terminal searches for the stored-source address information of any of the plurality of databases in accordance with the stored-destination address information, selects information corresponding to the stored-source address information from any of the plurality of databases based on the search result, and outputs the selected information.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a CAD information management system comprising: a plurality of databases for storing at least one of CAD drawing information and specification information on a specification of a component forming a CAD drawing and update history information of the at least one of the information, corresponding to stored-source address information; and a terminal connected to the plurality of databases via a communication network, for receiving and transmitting information to/from the plurality of databases based on input information, wherein when stored-destination address information indicating a stored destination of information is inputted as input information on the stored-source address information, the terminal searches for the stored-source address information of any of the plurality of databases in accordance with the stored-destination address information, selects at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information, corresponding to the stored-source address information, from any of the plurality of databases, based on the search result, displays the selected information, and also displays update information of the selected information.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided a CAD information management system comprising: a plurality of databases for storing at least one of CAD drawing information and specification information on a specification of a component forming a CAD drawing, together with update history information of the at least one of the information, corresponding to stored-source address information; a server connected to the plurality of databases via a communication network, for receiving and transmitting information to/from the plurality of databases; and a terminal connected to the server via an information transfer path, for receiving and transmitting information to/from the server based on input information, wherein when information on a stored destination of information is inputted as input information on the stored-source address information, the terminal requests a search in accordance with the input information to the server and displays the search result of the server, the server extracts the stored-destination address information corresponding to the information in response to the search request from the terminal, searches for the stored-source address information of any of the plurality of databases in accordance with the stored-destination address information, selects at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information, corresponding to the stored-source address information, from any of the plurality of databases, based on the search result, also selects update history information added to the at least one of the information, and transfers the selected information to the terminal.
Preferably, the CAD information management system may further comprise information management means for managing at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information. In the CAD information management system, the plurality of databases are connected to the information management means, the information management means outputs a result of determining whether or not the update request from the terminal is accepted, to the terminal, and when receiving the result of determining that the update request is accepted from the information management means, the terminal updates at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information in the plurality of databases, and adds the update history information on the update to the update information.
Further, preferably, in the CAD information management system, at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information is overlappingly stored in the plurality of databases.
According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a CAD information management method comprising the steps of: by an information management apparatus connected to a communication network, storing at least one of CAD drawing information and a specification of a component forming a CAD drawing to a plurality of databases, corresponding to stored-source address information, and connecting the databases to a terminal via the communication network; and, by the terminal, searching for the stored-source address information of any of the plurality of databases in accordance with stored-destination address information indicating a stored destination of information, selecting information corresponding to the stored-source address information from any of the databases based on the search, and displaying the selected information, when inputting the stored-destination address information to the terminal, as input information on the stored-source address information, in the case in which the information management apparatus manages the CAD drawing information and the specification information that are stored in the plurality of databases.
Preferably, the CAD information management method may further comprise the steps of: by the information management apparatus, outputting a result of determining whether or not an update request from the terminal is accepted, to the terminal, when the update request is inputted to the information management apparatus from the terminal; and by the terminal, updating at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information in the plurality of databases, when receiving the result of determining that the update request from the information management apparatus is accepted, and adding update history information on update to the update information.
According to a fifth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a CAD information management method, comprising the steps of: by an information management apparatus connected to a communication network, storing at least one of CAD drawing information and specification information on a specification of a component forming a CAD drawing and update history information of the at least one of the information, in a plurality of databases, corresponding to stored-source address information, connecting the plurality of databases to a server via the communication network, and connecting the server to a terminal via an information transfer path; by the terminal, requesting a search in accordance with input information, to the server, and displaying the search result of the server; and by the server, extracting stored-destination address information corresponding to the information in response to the search request from the terminal, searching for the stored-source address information of any of the plurality of databases based on the stored-destination address information, selecting at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information, corresponding to the stored-source address information, from any of the plurality of databases, selecting update history information added to the selected information, and transferring the selected information to the terminal, when information on a stored destination of information is inputted to the terminal as the input information on the stored-source address information in the case in which the information management apparatus manages the CAD drawing information and the specification information which are stored in the plurality of databases.
According to the present invention, at least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information is stored in a plurality of databases, corresponding to stored-source address information indicating a stored source. Therefore, when the stored-destination address indicating the stored destination of the information is inputted to the terminal, the information corresponding to the stored-source address information can selected from any of the databases and the selected information can be outputted or displayed, by searching for the stored-source address information from any of the databases in accordance with the stored-destination address information. In this case, even if the CAD drawing information or the specification information is distributionally stored in the databases, the CAD drawing information or the specification information can be easily browsed.
At least one of the CAD drawing information and the specification information is selected and displayed and the update information of the selected information is displayed. Therefore, it is easy to recognize a correcting status of the CAD drawing information or the specification information.
When the CAD drawing information or the specification information is searched via the server, the load of the terminal can be reduced. Further, the processing speed can be increased due to the process shared between the terminal and the server.